Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communication and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for transmitting data in a wireless communication system.
Related Art
A 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (hereinafter referred to as LTE) is a leading next-generation wireless communication system standard. In LTE, when a base station sends downlink data to a terminal, the base station first sends scheduling information about a downlink data channel through a control channel, assigns a downlink data channel based on the scheduling information, and sends the downlink data through the assigned downlink data channel. Even when a terminal sends uplink data to a base station, the base station first sends scheduling information about an uplink data channel to the terminal through a control channel, and the terminal sends uplink data through an uplink data channel assigned based on the scheduling information.
Meanwhile, 3GPP Long Term Evolution-Advanced (hereinafter referred to as LTE-A) is the next-generation wireless communication system standard improved from LTE. In LTE-A, low-priced/low-specification terminals which chiefly perform data communication, such as the metering of a meter, the measurement of a water level, the utilization of a surveillance camera, and a report on the inventory of a vending machine, can be supported. A low-priced/low-specification terminal which chiefly performs low-capacity data communication as described above is called a Machine Type Communication (MTC) device.
An MTC device may have a small amount of transmission data, and the number of devices that need to be supported by one base station within a cell may be many. For such characteristics, an existing data transmission method, that is, a method of transmitting scheduling information about each data channel through a control channel may have low efficiency in terms of the utilization of resources.